People with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Ghanaian government has done little to combat such abuse or to ensure that these people can live in the community, as is their right under international law.

Ghana’s ratification on August XX, 2012, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affirmed its commitment to respect the human rights of all its citizens, including those with disabilities, Human Rights Watch said today.

Mental Health

When we met Elijah early this year in Ghana, he was chained to a tree at a “prayer camp.” Five months earlier, his family had him bound with rope and forcibly taken to the camp for “treatment.” Elijah told me that he had been chained to the tree ever since – the “healing” prescribed for the restlessness and insomnia that his parents and the camp’s spiritual leaders had decided was a mental disability.

People with mental disabilities suffer severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers in Ghana, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Ghanaian government has done little to combat such abuse or to ensure that these people can live in the community, as is their right under international law.

Ghana’s ratification on August XX, 2012, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affirmed its commitment to respect the human rights of all its citizens, including those with disabilities, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch submitted this written statement to the Senate Committe on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, for their hearing on solitary confinement. Based on years of research and analysis, we are convinced the unnecessary, counter-productive, and devastating use of this harsh form of confinement in many US prisons cannot be squared with respect for human rights.

Human Rights Watch joined other human rights groups and health groups in issuing the following statement today following the release of a report about reproductive health by Anand Grover, the UN special rapporteur on the right to health.

Abeba M., an Ethiopian refugee living in Port Elizabeth, a small coastal town of South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, developed severe high blood pressure during her pregnancy. She went to a district hospital for treatment of this dangerous condition, but left because “the nurses and doctors did not treat me well,” she told me. She had to return when her condition worsened, though, and was admitted. Instead of getting the help she needed, she experienced treatment delays, abuse, and negligence.

Greece should take action to improve the rights of people with disabilities, Human Rights Watch said today. Greece is the host of the Special Olympics summer games, the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, being held from June 25 through July 4, 2011.

The Ugandan justice minister should immediately issue orders to release 11 prisoners with psychosocial or mental disabilities who have languished in prison for years without resolution of their cases, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the minister. All 11 have been found not guilty by reason of insanity but returned by the courts to prison, where they are placed on "minister's orders" status indefinitely until the minister decides on a course of action.